None the less hopes the
stranger and pilgrim to pause and knock once again upon those monastery
gates.
RUSHES AND REEDS
Taller than the grass and lower than the trees, there is another growth
that feels the implicit spring. It had been more abandoned to winter
than even the short grass shuddering under a wave of east wind, more than
the dumb trees. For the multitudes of sedges, rushes, canes, and reeds
were the appropriate lyre of the cold. On them the nimble winds played
their dry music. They were part of the winter. It looked through them
and spoke through them. They were spears and javelins in array to the
sound of the drums of the north.
The winter takes fuller possession of these things than of those that
stand solid. The sedges whistle his tune. They let the colour of his
light look through--low-flying arrows and bright bayonets of winter day.
The multitudes of all reeds and rushes grow out of bounds. They belong
to the margins of lands, the space between the farms and the river,
beyond the pastures, and where the marsh in flower becomes perilous
footing for the cattle.
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